Americans have already started noticing a decline in toilet paper rolls in their local stores as customer apparently bulk buy - despite the majority of paper being produced domestically
Toilet paper ‘panic buying’ has been reported in parts of the country, as Americans fear the impact of the ongoing port strike.
Roughly 45,000 members of the International Longshoremen’s Association walked out on Tuesday morning after their contract with the ports expired. News that the strike could impact 36 ports appears to have led some consumers to buy rolls upon rolls of toilet paper in a panic, with shoppers posting pictures of their local stores with empty shelves.
Social media users in New Jersey, Colorado, Virginia and other states reported shelves cleaned out of toilet paper.
Is this the new America? Disaster is looming, so buy toilet paper?
Yes but not just disasters. Toilet paper got sold out before the last solar eclipse. Americans buy toilet paper because it’s one of the few things they can still do with agency. It makes them feel like they accomplished something
It’s not even a disaster, like, the port workers wouldn’t strike so long as to actually threaten the country, they live in it. It’s only a disaster if you’re trying to avoid paying them more
I would say it’s a looming disaster in terms of the average price of goods for consumers when they are already living paycheck to paycheck in many cases.
I am on the side of the port workers, don’t get me wrong, but the fallout from this strike will hurt people.
As long as the right people are held accountable for that damage. The mainstream media does not have a good track record of reporting on the side of striking workers.
I agree.
Well, maybe the company should give the workers what they want then.
I am on the side of the port workers
It’s only a disaster if you’re trying to avoid paying them more
So, it’s a disaster then.
Hahaha, this again. I’m starting to think big TP sows dissidence in society, trying to cause any form of logistics service to be disrupted, so long as it’s not their trucks.
But also I love seeing how many people don’t know how to clean themselves at home if they have no TP.
I’d rather see people panic buying toilet paper than ammunition
Yeah, but I can tell you from COVID that when you’re getting close to running out of it, all the people panic buying toilet paper that didn’t need to make you a little bit cross.
Take solace in the fact that all the people that bought thousands of rolls with the intent to scalp them basically lost all that money after inventory caught up a month later.
Sounds like a trailer park boys story arc honestly
Julian starts scalping TP, gets Cory and Trevor (or their more recent replacements) to break in and steal TP from homes to make people need to buy them.
Lahey and Randy oppose this at first, but Julian is able to neutralize Lahey when he reminds him how important having TP is for those mornings after nights of heavy drinking. Lahey agrees to leave them alone and run interference on law enforcement in return for 3 rolls of TP a day. “Are you sure that’s going to be enough, Mr Lahey?” Randy asks.
Bubbles wants to avoid getting involved, seeing how pissed off it will make folks with Julian gouging the fuck out of everyone, but eventually agrees to let Julian store his TP in his shed, which is quickly taken over by it.
Ricky says the whole thing is fucking stupid, you don’t even need TP. Ends up in horrible discomfort and pain due to using poison ivy to wipe his ass.
Julian had been dumping most of his significant profits into expanding his venture (and puts the rest into an expensive car and home entertainment equipment, which he showed off in a scene entirely devoid of TP, including a part where someone grabs a roll to wipe their face and Julian stops them with a, “Don’t use that, you don’t know where that nasty shit has been, here use this tissue”, then the scene cuts to Bubbles unable to enter his shed because it’s entirely full of TP and shot ends with him panicking about his kitties"
Ricky discovers that, after the poison ivy, wiping with stinging nettles feels great because it scratches the ivy rash.
Bubbles and Julian discover that his kitties are fine and looove the TP, to Julian’s dismay because they shred the shit out of a few rolls. He had been resisting Bubbles’ complaints and requests to move it up to that point, immediately decides to move them to shopping carts outside.
People start complaining about the TP getting softer because of the humidity. Most of them are stolen from homes, so they aren’t sealed. Julian has to lower prices.
Ricky is found feverish and delirious in a ditch while Julian, Bubbles, Cory, and Trevor are on their way to heist a TP delivery that will ruin Julian’s business. Julian finally decides to put his friendship before profit and they take Ricky to the ER.
While there, Julian also agrees it’s time to ramp down his business because they couldn’t stop the truck and know that more are coming even if they did.
Then, as they exit the ER, it starts to rain.
Perfection, that was a lot of fun.
We have truly learned nothing
I learned something. The Koch brothers have some sort of secret campaign to make people afraid of not being able to wipe their ass during a disaster. I’m sorry, people, toilet paper is a luxury I will forego if the end is truly upon us.
I just can’t relate to other people. It makes me think these guys get up in the morning, check their TP stash first thing, and breathe a sigh of relief knowing their ass is safe for what ever diarrhea related emergency life has in store that day.
Labor power has apparently scared the shit out of us to such a degree that no amount of toilet paper will ever be enough to wipe it up.
Morons don’t even understand that toilet paper is domestically produced, not imported, so a dockworker’s strike would have fuck-all impact on the supply of it anyway.
Why always the fucking toilet paper? Time to finally get the bidet.
Glad we bought a bidet after the last wrath of morons did this.
“wrath of morons” has a nice ring to it.
As someone watching from outside (and a born and bred bidet user), this is hilarious.
I truly do not understand my fellow countryfolks’ minds. Why toilet paper, again?
A quick search can tell you what goods might be affected, and paper products don’t even make the list! https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/transportation/2024/10/01/strike-at-the-port-of-ny-and-nj-what-imports-are-affected/75468183007/
Imports into the Port of NY and NJ
- Furniture
- Appliances, machinery and parts
- Plastics
- Beverages, spirits and vinegar
- Electric machinery and parts
- Apparel and accessories, knit
- Rubber
- Vehicles and parts
- Iron and steel
- Toys, games, sports equipment
So as you’d expect: cars, furniture, electronics, fast fashion, some raw materials
In other words, very little that is essential or that you’ll miss in the next few months, but a lot of luxury things that cheap importers make a lot of money on.
Honestly, we’d be better off as a country if we permanently stopped importing a lot of this shit and went back to making it outselves.
we’d be better off as a country if we permanently stopped importing a lot of this shit and went back to making it outselves.
Of course.
But there’s more short-term profits to be made for a select few if we close even more factories where they have to pay (more-or-less) a living wage and outsource to low wage countries.
Didn’t we learn from the pandemic that most toilet paper is produced with country borders due to high shipping costs?
Didn’t we learn from the pandemic
No.
I think most of the general pop stopped paying attention by the time that was clear. Hopefully more idiots will try to scalp TP and stores will refuse their returns when the scalpers realize any shortages caused by runs (heh) are temporary.
IIRC, the shortage in 2020 was only in stores and warehouse storage didn’t even get fully tapped out before things stabilized.
I also remember going to the stores and being surprised there was still tons of pasta while people were scrambling for TP. I didn’t use a bidet at that time (do now though), but even then my thought was “even if we run out of TP entirely, you can just start taking a shower after shitting, but there isn’t an easy alternative if the food runs out”. The pasta runs came later, but I was already stocked up.
I never understood this behaviour. I will starve before I run out of things to wipe my ass with.
Don’t they already have a stockpile from last time?
These people need to be banned from doing this lmao
All they need is this guy:
If it starts to disappear again, check out a company called Who Gives a Crap? We never had a supply issue during the pandemic.
